Due to the nature of complex mixtures within coatings, it is sometimes difficult to formulate, identify, and/or search for acceptable matching formulations and/or pigmentations. In an ideal setting, an individual could view a complex coating mixture and determine the appropriate pigments within the coating mixture. However, in reality the pigments in a coating mixture may not be readily available in a set of toners of a paint system that is to be utilized to make a matching coating. Thus, a skilled color matcher has to make a determination as to whether the paint system contains appropriate offsets and, if so, must determine additional changes which need to be made to accommodate the offsets given that they are not identical matches to the original pigmentation.
A hypothetical solution to determining the composition of an unknown pigmentation is to read the unknown with a device that can search a database for the best matching coating formula within the database (or a device that can immediately create a new coating formula). However, such a solution is only hypothetical because systems are able to determine color or bulk effect pigment type, but generally cannot assist in determination of, for example, the specific pearl necessary for a coating formulation match.
Traditional techniques to evaluate the properties of complex coating mixtures include a variety of in-plane viewing conditions (e.g., the J361 Recommended Practice promulgated by SAE International) combined with microscopic evaluation of a sample. Such approaches are generally not appropriately defined to address new effect pigmentations in complex mixtures and are largely focused on textiles and only “obscurely” identified “out-of-plane” viewing angles with at least two light sources so that the effect pigmentations may be viewed properly. Other techniques involve using a spectrophotometer (e.g., in-plane multi-angle devices for effect samples and spherical devices for straight shade samples). However, new pigments are not able to be adequately characterized using such techniques due to the unique properties of Colorstream® pearls, colored aluminums, etc. For example, it may be challenging to view, for example, Colorstream® pigments and it may be nearly impossible to see coarseness of colored aluminums and, thus, a microscope may be required to adequately determine special effect pigments, which is a time consuming process and may not satisfactorily address application issues which modify the characteristics of the sample and the effect of the special pigments.
Other strategies have been developed using painted or virtual samples representing various textures, and then comparing those to unknown samples. Such techniques often require substantial user intervention and are subjective, which produces inconsistent results depending on the skill of the user. Thus, a need exists for systems and methods that are suitable for analyzing complex coating mixtures having sparkle color.